Freedoms Road

1
Freedoms Road

• African Americans and the Civil War

2
The African American Perspective on the War What
was the war about?

• Freedom
• Manhood
• Citizenship

3
Freedom

• Frederick Douglass Any attempt now to separate
  the freedom of the slave from the victory of the
  governmentany attempt to secure peace to the
  whites while leaving the blacks in chains--will
  be labor lost . . . The war now being waged in
  this land is a war for and against slavery.

4
Freedom

• From the outbreak of the war
• African Americans in the North called for Lincoln
  to emancipate the slaves
• Slaves in the South ran away to Union lines

5
Manhood

• White paternalism (North and South) blacks were
  savage children
• African American saw military service as an
  opportunity to change white opinions

6
Citizenship

• African Americans linked citizenship to military
  service
• If blacks performed well and faithfully, how
  could their claims to citizenship be denied?

7
Federal Policy toward African Americans

• Stages
• 1861 A white mans war
• 1862 Emancipation
• 1863-65 Blacks and the armed services

8
1861 A white mans war

• Prewar law prohibited black enlistment in the
  Army (but not the Navy)
• Lincolns concerns for the Border States
• Position of Northern Democrats
• Congressional resolutions on the war
• No one anticipated a long war
• Lincoln remained cautious

9
1861 A white mans war

• Contraband policy, May 23, 1861
• General Benjamin F. Butler
• Fort Monroe, Va.
• First Confiscation Act, Aug. 6, 1861
• Slaves used on Confederate projects subject to
  capture
• Became federal property not freed

10
1861 A white mans war

• Lincoln rescinded Fremonts Aug. 30 unauthorized
  Mo. emancipation proclamation
• But the Navy, desperate for men, began enlisting
  contrabands, Sept. 25

11
1861 A white mans war

• And blacks did accompany the Union armed forces
  to war as hired civilians
• cooks, teamsters, stevedores, camp servants
• For such work they received less pay than whites

12
1862 Emancipation

• March Congress outlawed slavery in the
  territories
• May Lincoln rescinded unauthorized emancipation
  proclaimed by David Hunter, Dept. of the South
• July Second Confiscation Act
• Freed all contrabands and all slaves of masters
  participating in the rebellion
• Doubting the laws constitutionality, Lincoln did
  not enforce it.

13
1862 Emancipation

• Militia or Enlistment Act, July 17
• Gave the President authority to enlist African
  Americans in the Army at his discretion
• Lincoln took no action

14
1862 Emancipation

• The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Sept.
  22
• Slaves in areas still in rebellion as of Jan. 1,
  1863, to be freed
• Slaves in Mo., Md., Del., Ky., and parts of
  Confederacy already conquered were exempted
• Slaves in those areas would remain slaves

15
1862 Emancipation

• November With consent of the War Department and
  Lincoln, three regiments of Louisiana Native
  Guards mustered into federal service
• Regiments were composed of free blacks in New
  Orleans (Federals had captured the city in April)
• They were the first African Americans to be
  enlisted in the U.S. Army
• 1st Kansas Colored (Lane) was accepted next, then
  1st S.C. (Saxton)

16
Jan. 1, 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.

• Justification a fit and necessary war measure
  for suppressing said rebellion
• Suitable freedmen will be received into the
  armed service . . . to garrison forts, positions,
  stations, and other places, and to man vessels

17
1863-1865 Blacks and the armed services
18
1863-1865 Blacks and the armed services

• African Americans in combat
• 449 engagements
• 39 battles, including
• Battery Wagner, 1863
• Port Hudson, 1863
• Olustee, 1864
• Nashville, 1864
• 24 Medal of Honor winners

19
1861-1865 Blacks and the armed services

• Conditions of service
• Segregation
• Black volunteer regiments
• United States Colored Troops, May 22, 1863
• Unequal pay (until 1864)
• Prejudice of fellow Union soldiers
• Fate of prisoners in Confederate hands

20
Missouri African Americans and the War

• Background
• Military service
• Women and children

21
Background Missouri statistics from 1860 Census
22
Military service

• Slavery was still legal in Missouri
• But federal law freed any slave who enlisted
• Govt. compensated slaveholders 300/slave
• This was well below market value
• Missouri slaveholders loyal to the Union
  complained that recruiters stole their slaves

23
Military service

• Regiments organized in the state
• 1st Mo. Colored Inf. (62nd USCT), Dec. 1863
• 2nd Mo. Colored Inf. (65th USCT), Dec. 1863
• 3rd Mo. Colored Inf. (67th USCT), Jan., 1864
• 4th Mo. Colored Inf. (68th USCT), Jan. 1864
• 18th USCT, Feb.-Sept. 1864
• The last regiment organized at large, the others
  at Benton Barracks, near St. Louis
• Total numbers 8,334 (an undercount?)

24
Military service

• Blacks in Trans-Mississippi battles
• Island Mound, Mo., Oct. 1862
• Cabin Creek, I.T., July 1863
• Honey Springs, I.T., July 1863
• Poison Springs, Ark., April 1864
• Jenkins Ferry, Ark., April 1864

25
Military service

• 2nd Battalion, St. Louis City Guard
• Formed by African Americans Sept. 26, 1864, to
  help defend the city against Prices Raid
• Disbanded Oct. 31, 1864

26
Women and children

• St. Louis Colored Ladies Union Aid Society
• Black nurses on hospital ships

27
Women and children

• Refugees
• Camp followers

28
Legacy of the war

• Mo. state convention abolished slavery, Jan. 1865
• Blacks granted all civil rights except voting and
  office holding
• Those were not established until 1870, with the
  15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

29
Legacy of the war

• Mo. whites resisted the freedmens gains
• Sempronius Boyd, writing from Springfield, June
  1865
• Hundreds of negroes . . . have settled here and
  are industrious, well behaved, and now constitute
  a large portion of our laboring class, and are
  indeed a blessing to us. Yet . . . they are
  persecuted wronged, whipped and even killed and
  nothing done to prevent it.

30
Legacy of the war

• Boyd reported that a black church had been burned
  down in Springfield and that one poor negro who
  was gathering a load of wood only half a mile
  from the court house was shot.
• The struggle against slavery had ended.
• The struggle against racism was just beginning.

31
Legacy of the war

• Lincoln Institute (Lincoln University)
• Founded 1866, Jefferson City
• Funds raised by white officers and black
  soldiers, 62nd and 65th USCT

32
Lincoln Institute founders
33
Lincoln Institute founders
34
Sources

• Dudley Taylor Cornish, The Sable Arm Negro
  Troops in the Union Army (1956)
• Pauli Murray, Proud Shoes The Story of an
  American Family (1956)
• Joseph Glatthaar, Forged in Battle The Civil War
  Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers
  (1990)
• Noah Trudeau, Like Men of War Black Troops in
  the Civil War (1998)
• Wilbert L. Jenkins, Climbing Up to Glory A Short
  History of African Americans during the Civil War
  and Reconstruction (2002)
• Ervin L. Jordan, Black Confederates and
  Afro-Yankees in Civil War Virginia (1995).